Several devices for cleaning the barrel of a shotgun have been designed in previous years. U.S. Pat. No. 4,726,137 to Zurek discloses a motor-driven gun cleaning rod, wherein a motor is attached to the end of the rod. However, there is no provision to prevent barrel scraping due to irregular rotation within the barrel.
A system described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,930,240 to Bice shows a gun barrel cleaning rod that has sections and is designed to be attachable to an electric screwdriver. Threaded interconnects are provided for making cleaning rods of different lengths, and they are not larger than the diameter of the remainder of the rod to prevent barrel scraping.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,050,331, issued to Burkhalter, has a cleaning rod for a pistol with a crank on the end that allows the rod to be moved in and out for cleaning. A West German patent to Mert shows a manually-operated cleaning rod that uses couplings between sections. U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,465 to Hsu displays a sectionalized rifle gun cleaning rod. U.S. Pat. No. 2,544,150 to Franklin discloses a deformable wiper for firearm bores. U.S. Pat. No. 4,962,607 to Baldwin shows a smooth bore cleaning rod with an elastomeric cleaning nose. Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,674,218 to Bottomley discloses another gun cleaning rod which also has threaded interconnects between sections, but the interconnects are only for the purpose of changing the size of the rod and not for preventing barrel scraping.
Although there are several motorized cleaning rods in the prior art and some with interconnecting sections, none of them prevent barrel scraping.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a cleaning rod or shaft which prevents scraping of the gun barrel.
It is also an object to provide bushings on the cleaning rod which simply and economically prevent scraping of a gun barrel.